


whoever said we couldn't have it all?

by minabyrd



Category: Lovecraft Country (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergent (pre-1x10), Domesticity, Established Relationship, F/F, Femslash, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Pregnancy, Romance, i will make this family found if its the last thing i do
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:21:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27092737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minabyrd/pseuds/minabyrd
Summary: After Ardham, Ruby and Christina pick up the pieces of their lives and make a discovery.
Relationships: Christina Braithwhite/Ruby Baptiste
Comments: 29
Kudos: 236





	whoever said we couldn't have it all?

**Author's Note:**

> and with publishing this fic, i’ve officially written more words for ruby and christina than towards my actual dissertation this year. what can i say? these ladies have truly captured so much of our souls, and i am honored to have spent the last month or so clowning around with you wonderful people. my friends! may we have our hearts balanced well across all the emotions tonight! 
> 
> this is a part domestic bliss fix-it (what else do i write, really?), part self-indulgent exploration after i realized i put all my bets on the wrong sister getting pregnant this season, and part character study of our ladies and their big ol family who all just need to hug it out. the fic is set in a post-canon space, and floats in the same world as my previous works, ‘return to love’ and ‘created you first’
> 
> many thank you’s to alinaishere for lending me her thoughts and encouragement! and of course, everyone who’s left a kind comment, kudos, and general feel-good energy. i love you all! 
> 
> title from marina’s _superstar_. though the whole song (and love + fear album) make me cry about our ladies’ relationship, these three lines stuck out to me the most:  
>  _what i like about you is you know who you are / what you like about me is i know what i’m not;_  
>  _my love is a planet, revolving your heart;_  
>  _we’ll stick together, make it through the storm / you and i, whoever said we couldn’t have it all?_

When Ruby steps into Leti’s house, the warm smell of simmering onions and bubbling oil greet her like a friend. It should, as it’s her recipe she can taste across her tongue, of course. She doubts Leti has bothered picking up any others. But something sits funny in the back of her mouth, an unexpected smell. She wonders if Leti’s trying her own twist again.

“Who’s it?” she hears Leti call from the kitchen, followed by a clang of wooden spoon against aluminum. 

“It’s me!” Ruby raises her voice to be hopefully heard over the fan she can hear running above the stove. 

“Just you? Christina not coming?”

“She’s busy tonight,” Ruby shrugs off her jacket, adjusting the fur neckline in her hands.

She had found it hanging on the closet door that morning. A common location Ruby spots Christina’s offerings — a new scarf, a dress, even a deep red lace nightgown once that she had reveling in peeling off of Ruby that night. 

They had gone for a walk the day before and Ruby had underestimated the autumn air, a sharp shiver rattling her spine. Christina had immediately looked up from the golden leaves crunching underfoot, spotting gooseflesh on dark skin, and turned back in the direction of their house at a brisk pace. 

Leti scoffs when walks back in the room at Ruby fiddling with how the collar lay on the coatrack. “She gave you another one?”

Ruby just hums. “How’s Mr. Fix-It’s job hunt going?” and a muscle in Leti’s jaw tightens. 

“He’s cooking tonight,” Leti says, evenly. “Your beans and rice.” 

“Well I hope he remembers the cilantro,” Ruby says as she sinks into their couch. 

“Of course, your majesty,” Leti just rolls her eyes before flopping across from Ruby, swinging her feet up to kick annoyingly against her thigh. “So the bitch is busy doing what?” Ruby gives her a hard look and Leti shrugs. “What? I want to make sure she isn’t hatching up another plan to come for one of us since she fucked up the first sacrifice.” 

“Leti,” Ruby’s tone is a clear warning. 

“Excuse me for caring about the father of my child,” and it’s a light-hearted teasing, but Leti’s eyes still have flickering embers of anger. 

Ruby opens her mouth, then closes it quickly with a clack of teeth. They’ve worked through every pathway of this argument a thousand different ways in the past three weeks since the equinox, and its ended in heated voices and slammed doors more often than not. The fact Leti isn’t immediately devolving into threats is a step. A small, potentially fucked up step, but one nonetheless. So Ruby lets her hackles fall.

“She had a few things she needed to work on,” Ruby says, and obviously Leti’s not impressed with the ambiguity there, but she picks up the olive branch Ruby’s offering and holds her tongue. 

Ruby though, still feels the familiar sting of hurt piercing at her heart, of the late-night startled awakenings and reaching across from her for a bony arm, the lingering smell of smoke and blood.

In the aftermath of the Ardham, surrounded by skittering shoggoths making quick work to dispose of the bodies lying around them, Ruby remembers Hippolyta pulling up in Woody like Hera’s chariot itself, except with more exhaust fumes than peacock feathers. She had slammed her hand twice on the roof, snapping each of their shell-shocked asses to her attention. 

“We’re not sticking around for the official investigation,” she pointed at the open back door. Montrose had a rare moment of intelligence not to argue, climbing in. Ji-Ah quietly followed, brushing at the blood stains on her skirt as if that would help keep the car clean.

When Ruby pulled at Christina’s thin elbow to maneuver her towards the door, she’s stopped by her sister’s furious face stepping in front of her. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Leti hissed. “She tried to kill Tic _ten minutes ago_ , and you want to carpool back?”

“Weirdly fucking enough, he’s not dead!” Ruby threw a hand towards Tic, who’s gingerly sliding in the front, nursing the bandaged gash at his side. Leti just crossed her arms, shifting her gaze to eye Christina. 

She had always looked like a mess of jagged angles and skeletal beauty, but now, in a tattered and scorched dress, Christina looked absolutely gaunt. Dried blood had trickled freely down the sides of her head, turned immaculate blonde into a matted nest of vague reddish-brown. Her eyes are downturned, accentuated by slumped shoulders and long arms hanging low at her side. It looks like a stray gust of wind could easily split her into pieces. 

“She saved me, Leti,” and Ruby’s voice was dangerous, liquid fire down Leti’s back. “All of us. I don’t care if that means nothing to you, it means everything to me. Let her in,” she points to the car door one final time, “then you never have to see her again.”

Leti looked like she’s going to argue, but Ruby’s patience had already been long worn out. It was gone the second a white man stepped out of a swirling vortex that sent Christina’s eyes from triumph to fear; when he pointed a blade at Ruby’s heart and and rasped, “give it to me, and I’ll give you everything you desire, child,” and Christina had turned to her with a single tear running down her cheek; when Ruby had heard whispered words in a foreign tongue and prayed to God one last time before there was a blinding light, a hellish scream, and the smell of _burning_. 

It was gone when Ruby had opened her eyes and saw charred ash all around them, bleeding into the night, except for a semicircle of dewy grass starting right behind Christina that engulfed Ruby, Leti, and Tic; a barrier of safety and her as its beacon.

It was gone when Christina fell to her knees, blood trickling down her eyes and a blank expression on her face. 

Leti must have remembered it too, because she just clenches her jaw and moves. 

Ruby stepped behind her, gently maneuvering Christina in the car. Christina ends up half-pressed on Ruby’s thighs against the door, a position that would have sent her blood boiling a day earlier. But now, feeling how uncomfortably _light_ the body is sitting on her, how sharp bones dig through the ripped fabric as if clothing was the only thing holding her skeleton up, it feels like ice sucking all the warmth out of her legs. During the car ride, Ruby shifts often, trying to ease the angle of her legs so Christina’s back isn’t curled quite much to avoid Woody’s roof. But she doesn’t seem to notice the movement.

In the past few months, Ruby had learned to hear Christina in more ways than one. Yes, she did like her cutting remarks, but she also liked her whispered promises. Ruby remembers Christina only raised her voice once — _I came_ _for you —_ because generally her voice was her last resort. She had wondered why Leti always called her emotionless, because Christina’s face had become as open as a child’s. Every thought clear from the line between her eyebrows when she was confused. The flick of her left fingers when she was nervous. The way she purposefully avoided being present every time Ruby found her new coats. And her favorite — the twitch of her lips to the left when she enjoyed Ruby’s snapping a little too much. Christina spoke through so much more than words, and Ruby had loved to learn it across her tongue, ears, eyes. 

But the silence radiating off of Christina now had none of that. She just sits. Her immaculate posture forgotten. There weren’t even lines for Ruby to read between. She wonders if this is what people see when they look at Christina, how she had looked at her before — well before what? Those blue has had always been full of longing at her feet. 

It’s terrifying. 

The drive was both instantaneous and eternal. The moment outside of time and space, but when they pull back off the expressway into Chicago and the light of dawn starts to peek through Woody’s windows, Ruby starts to feel the tug of reality settling on her shoulders, that had been yanked away from her the moment they stepped into that godforsaken town. 

When they finally pull up by the house Ruby has called home for so much longer than she expected, and Leti clears her throat for them to get a move on, Ruby’s itching to walk back into the comfort.

Out of the car with Christina half-leaning against her side, Ruby turned back to the car to wave them off. The sight of who’s left sitting in Woody — a blue-haired Hippolyta at the wheel fiddling with the implants on her wrist, Leti glaring over a dozing Tic on her shoulder, and Montrose in the back eyeing Ji-Ah who’s pressed up against the window to stare guilelessly at her surroundings — hit her with such a strong wave of ridiculousness that a cold bark of laughter ripped out of her chest. The birds in their garden fluttered away, affronted.

After Woody roared off, Ruby dug around into her purse for her keys, wiping shoggoth slime off on her skirt. Grimacing, she rips off her clothes almost the moment they stepped in the house, strewing them across the foyer. She paused to help Christina step out of the remains of dress, leaving it on the floor. The carpet could surely handle it, having seen far worse from both of them. 

Ruby took them to their bathroom, every step deeper into the house sucking the bone-weary exhaustion from her body even before she steps in the hot bath. She forced a swaying Christina in first, slipping back in the tub behind her, armed with two sponges and a bottle full of soap. Ruby scrubs blood off her own head first, and then moves to blonde hair, twisting mottled strands under her finger to crack the blood out of the them. She has to drain and refill the water twice before it starts to stay clear.

Finally, when Ruby could inhale and smell their soap and _themselves_ again, she nudged a flushed pink body up before she stands herself. Ruby hangs a towel across thin shoulders before stepping out to check in the mirror for any spots of blood she may have missed. When she turns back, she sighs at Christina who stands unmoving, still dripping with legs half-submerged in the tub, and moves to towel her off. 

When they’re both dry, Ruby gently pulled Christina along back into to their room, setting her on the bed. The place seems to stir something in her, because it’s the first movement Ruby sees her willingly take, pulling long legs up to settle under the sheet Ruby has pulled back. Christina lets herself fall back, and inhales so deeply into the pillows, Ruby thinks its like hearing her first breath.

Ruby slipped in next to her, laying on her side to stare at Christina. Slowly, she reached out and tilts a dimpled chin up so that finally, finally blue eyes meet her own.

The sadness staring back at her shattered Ruby’s heart anew. 

“Oh, Christina…” and Ruby tucked her under her chin just as the sobs start wracking through thin shoulders. 

Against Ruby’s chest, Christina cried unbidden, free and safe. But every choked breath tugs sharply at Ruby’s heart. She has her arms wrapped tight around Christina, who has her own curled tight around Ruby’s waist, and tucks her legs behind hers. Ruby she wishes she can press closer against her, absorb more of the sorrow moving so heavily across on Christina’s shoulders, tearing itself through her body with each ragged breath.

Finally, thankfully, after what seemed like hours, Christina starts to slow. Her shoulders start to ease, from violent shudders to smaller trembles. The nails digging into Ruby’s hips lessen, long fingers smoothing out the dips she can feel in her skin in an apology. 

When Christina could breathe more evenly again, with only quiet hitched breaths to signal her previous state, Ruby starts to pull back. This is the wrong move, as Christina digs her fingers back deeper into dark skin and lifts a blotched face up with such a open, frightened expression, that Ruby almost regrets it immediately.

“We need to drink something,” Ruby said though, thumbing a few trickling tears away from a red cheek. It takes a few seconds for the words to process through Christina’s head, but she eventually loosens her grip. Only slightly, but enough that Ruby can shuffle back and rise, slowly as if not to startle Christina back into a fit. Glassy blue eyes stay fixed on her the whole time. 

It’s the quickest Ruby’s ever made her way through the house, bringing a whole pitcher of water along with two full glasses back upstairs. She gives one to a half-sitting Christina, who drinks it down in three long sips before curling against Ruby as she sits back on the bed. 

Ruby finished her own glass and places it on the nightstand, before shuffling to lay down. Christina adjusts around her again, tucking herself back into Ruby’s chest with a heavy sigh. 

“Do you want to tell me how you feel?” Ruby asked, tracing a cheekbone. Christina closes her eyes to nuzzle against her hand.

“Tired,” she whispered, and an unshed tear rolls out. 

“I know,” Ruby cupped her cheek, wiping it away. “I’m so sorry.”

“I failed,” and it was a quiet heartbreak, like a child breaking a toy for the first time and realizing it’ll never be the same. 

“You did,” Ruby bit her lip, not sure if she wants to follow up. But she never held back from Christina and she wouldn’t start then. “For me.”

Christina opened her eyes then, flickering between Ruby's. “For you.”

There’s nothing but exhaustion across her face. No malice. No regret. 

“How do you feel about that?” Ruby asks though, to be sure.

“I don’t know,” but at the answer, Ruby stiffens. She started to pull her hand back, but Christina reached up quickly to place her own on top of it, keeping the pressure against her face, quickly breathing out her next words, “But I know one thing for sure.”

She licked her lips, as she dragged her eyes all along Ruby’s face, finally up to meet her gaze. The way Christina looked into her eyes always makes Ruby think she’s trying to climb in, dive into that spot in her chest where she knows she’ll be fully safe.

“I didn’t want an eternity of firsts if it meant this was the time I’d see you last.”

Ruby inhaled sharply. She flickers between Christina’s eyes before feeling overwhelmed at their honesty, leaning in to press her lips gently against full ones. Christina responded eagerly, with more exhaustion but no less enthusiasm than their previous kisses, trying to drink in every bit of her.

She pulled back to stare into Christina’s heavy eyes, trying to summon coherent thoughts.

“I’m sorry,” and Ruby was, as much as she knows Leti would hate her for it. Was she unhappy Tic was alive? No. Other than his meaning to Leti, she had little feelings one way or the other. But the way Christina’s despair rolls of her now, in still shaky breaths? She was truly, desperately sorry it was there. 

“I love you,” Ruby follows up, and it wasn’t the first time she said it, but it has a hint of _something else_ in her voice, another layer to the truth, and from the way Christina reacted, she had heard it too. With a small smile, Christina just nestled closer. 

“I love you, too,” she whispers into Ruby’s chest, above her heart. She presses a small kiss there, before tucking her cheek against the skin and lets the arm holding Ruby’s on her face fall to tuck around her waist. It’s only a few minutes before her breathing slows, evening out in sleep, and Ruby had soon followed.

In the morning, she had woken to faint light streaming in through the window. The exhaustion was still nibbling at her bones, but at least they had been chased far enough off for no permanent damage. She lays in bed and just watches Christina breathe, rubbing a soothing hand every time she twitches in her dreams. 

Blue eyes eventually blink open. Ruby watches as they melt at the sight of her face, her usual routine, but as conciousness flits back in her mind, they widen in remembrance at the day before, and Ruby can see her spiral. 

“What do you want to eat?” Ruby asks quickly, throwing a lifeline. 

Christina is frozen for a terrifying heartbeat, before she blinks and pulls. 

“Can you make eggs?”

And the request is so simple, so small, that Ruby beams.

It’s these flashes of Christina that has made the long weeks of sullen moods worthwhile. Christina’s little requests for Ruby’s cooking, a strummed song, or just to rest her head against her chest in bed, that make coming home to see a trashed lab or smashed china across the kitchen floor, and a curled up body against the wall a little less painful.

So Ruby is not lying to Leti. Christina _is_ busy. Processing. Christina had been calmly sketching at her drawing table. Ruby had kissed her cheek before she left that night, spotting only detailed sketches of herbs for a minor spell. But like every time Ruby’s extended the offer to join them at Leti’s for the weekly dinner, Christina had just turned away with a closed-off face, tight fingers gripping the pencil, and a single shake of her head.

Ruby breathes, trying to clear the memories out of her head. She looks back up to Leti, “Is Hippolyta’s coming?”

“She should be here soon,” Leti glances at the grandfather clock. “Dee should have finished practice.” Ruby smiles, thinking of how Dee has blossomed since Hippolyta returned. Almost like before George. Mysteriously, every time Ruby’s gently brought up the subject, Diana just gives her a wry smile and talks about how Hippolyta takes her to Kentucky every other weekend to “go on adventures.” 

Bounding footsteps on the porch catch her attention right before the front door opens. Ruby turns to see Dee’s excited head pops in.

“Speak of the devil!” Ruby laughs. Dee’s grin only grows spotting her, and she half-steps, half-drags something heavy and metallic into the house.

“What in the name of…?” Leti peeks over the back of the couch “You better not be scratching those floors, Diana!” 

Ruby scoffs, walking over. “There’s still bullet shells everywhere, Leti. Why don’t you quit complaining and help?” and Dee shoots Ruby a grateful look as she bends to help shove the box-like contraption inside enough for a waiting Hippolyta to step around it and leans in to Ruby for a hug. Montrose follows, and gives her a wary nod. Ruby just eyes him, then turns back to Dee with her hands on her hips, huffing from the effort. “What’s all this then?” 

“Mama got me a working prototype of Orithyia’s matter-shifting machine!” Dee kneels down to press at a complicated control panel, and a series of multicolored lights on the rims blink awake. 

“Like, actual matter?” Leti asks. She nudges the with her foot, and both Dee and Ruby turn to her immediately with a sharp, _“hey!”_

Leti raises her hands and backs away. “You can show Auntie Ruby how this works first. I’m going to go help Tic with dinner.” 

Ruby pretends not to notice when Leti hisses _“did you remember the cilantro?”_ as she turns the corner. Instead, she sits across from Dee, who chatters through a whole explanation of the machine, the action of each button on the panel, and the theoretical basis of all the equations Hippolyta had taught her. 

The most exciting part is when Dee pulls out a seemingly nondescript paperweight out from inside the box to show Ruby before she closes the lid and presses a couple of the buttons. There’s a short humming noise, and the lights turns green. Dee pulls out a minature figure shaped like the woman featured in the sketches plastered across Hippolyta’s fridge.

“And watch this!” Dee presses on the sculpture’s foot and it shoots out blue colored sparks. The exact shade of Hippolyta’s hair. 

“This is amazing, Dee!” Ruby squints as she lifts up the sculpture Dee hands over. “Can it transform anything?”

“Only that small amount of metal,” Hippolyta says, and then smiles. “For now.”

Ruby laughs, and then gives the sculpture back to Dee who throws it back in the box and starts messing with the control panel again. 

“Dinner’s ready in two!” Leti calls out from the kitchen, and Ruby climbs to her feet to check the table. Last time, Leti had forgotten to set any silverware out and they all stared expectantly as her stew sat cooling. 

Montrose is already sitting at a high-backed chair, with a full glass of something dark in front of him. He tips the flask in his hands towards her, but Ruby just raises an eyebrow and he puts it away with a shrug. 

Leti rushes in a few seconds later with a stack of napkins. “Great, thanks for helping,” she grins, shoving them into Ruby’s arms. 

“Aren’t you the host here?” Ruby asks, but Leti’s already halfway back to the kitchen, waving a hand distractedly back at her. Tic carries in a big pot of something steaming just as she’s finished placing the last napkin, and the rest of the house starts to pile into the room.

Ruby takes her normal seat, next to her sister at the head of the table. 

“Looks as good as yours?” Leti asks, eying the platter of chicken. 

“Looks ain’t everything,” Ruby squints. Leti just her just rolls her eyes as she grabs Ruby’s plate, placing a thigh next to spoonfuls of beans and rice, before putting it back in front of her.

“Take a bite then. Tic was nervous when I said he should make it,” Leti elbows him at her other side, and the ladle in his hand wobbles and some spills some sauce over the edge onto the tablecloth. “Still is, I guess.” 

Tic shoots Leti a glare, but Ruby ignores them and brings a spoonful up to her face, blowing to cool it before taking a small bite.

She only chews twice before she gags, whipping a napkin up to her face to spit it out. 

“Damn, Tic!” She says, after she’s swallowed some water. “What the fuck did you put in here, pickle juice?”

Leti glares at him, and quickly takes a bite of her own. But her eyebrows furrow, and turns back to Ruby. “What do you mean?” 

“What?” Ruby frowns. “It’s so sour! Like its gone three days bad at least.” 

“Tastes fine to me,” Leti takes another bite for good measure. “A little more salty than yours, but I don’t taste anything like that?” 

Ruby turns to Dee, who nods along with Leti and looks questioningly back at her. 

Her frown deepens, and Ruby spoons up another bite to test again, but suddenly the smell is overpowering and she feels bile at the back of her throat. She stumbles away from the table, making it just in time to the bathroom to avoid throwing up all over Leti’s foyer. 

Leti runs in after her with another glass of water. “You don’t seem like you have a fever,” she says, after she puts a hand to Ruby’s forehead. “What did you eat for lunch?”

“Nothing really,” Ruby takes a sip to wash out her mouth. “Some leftovers I warmed up from last night, but I was fine then.”

“I asked Tic if he accidentally put any shellfish in, cause I know your allergies made you hurl for that week after we got the lobster tails from old lady Ella.” Leti laughs. “I remember you cried like a baby on day three.” 

“I was twelve,” Ruby rolls her eyes. “And hungry!”

“Well Tic didn’t put any in, we don’t even have any in the house,” She shakes her head. “It’s got to be something you ate, because it can’t be possible for you to have a White Bitch Junior in there can y — ” 

It hits both of them at the same time. Despite how different they look, the same expression is painted on both sisters’ faces staring back at each other. Identical faces of realization, shock, and oh. 

_Fuck_.

— — —

“You’re definitely pregnant,” Hippolyta says, pulling her sleeves down to cover her implants again. “Eleven weeks along, give or take a few days. Congratulations.”

“Eleven weeks?” Ruby’s eyebrows raise, at the same time Leti says, “Congratulations?”

Ruby turns her head to glare at her sister sitting next to her on the bed, but Leti doesn’t flinch.

“Really?” Leti shakes her head. “I mean, Ruby. We’re talking about the same person here?”

“We definitely are,” Ruby’s tone is ice cracking as you step in the middle of the lake. Leti just groans, turning back to Hippolyta. 

“How is it even possible?” 

“If she has complete control over all bodily functions in William’s body, then it’s not so complicated,” Hippolyta shrugs. “We’ll need to be careful and have regular monitoring just in case anything pops up, but the child’s vital signs indicate everything is typical.”

“Great,” Leti says from between the hands on her face. “The chips from the future — I’m sorry, _alternate earth_ — implanted in Hippolyta’s arms say everything is normal.”

“Who else you trying to insult tonight, Leti?” Ruby grits through her teeth. “Want to bring up Mama while you’re at it?”

“I do!” Leti slams her hands down on her thighs, then raising one to point right at Ruby’s chest. “Because you look just like her right now!” 

Ruby opens her mouth in a snarl. “Oh really? Because I think I look like _you_.” Leti’s face flushes, but before she can say anything, Ruby rises to her feet, glowering. The energy raging through her body too much to be contained and it all rushes out through her mouth like fire.

“No you know what?” Ruby clenches her fists. “I don’t look like you _or_ mama. Because if I have this baby, it’s going to come out to a big ass house full of everything it could ever want, literal fucking magic to protect anything coming its way, and more money in its name than the rest of us combined will see in our lives.”

“Ruby,” Leti shakes her head. “You think she’s going to claim that baby?”

And it’s like a bucket of ice water down her back. Because suddenly Ruby realizes, _she doesn’t know_. 

In her rush to correct Leti, she realizes that in the short time she’s had to run her mind through the future, she implicitly assumed that Christina would be right at her side. 

But Christina has never mentioned children. She barely mentions her own childhood, other than snide comments about the order, or her father, but all were in relation to learning magic. She doesn’t think she’s ever really seen Christina interact with anyone other than her, or her family — the shade of a man through the vortex not included — and that’s little ground for comparison. The youngest person Ruby thinks Christina knows is Dee, and other than complimenting her artistry, she’s had little time to say much else.

She falls back against the bed, letting her head drop into her hands.

Leti sighs, and Ruby can feel the shift of the mattress as she scoots closer. A gentle hand lays on her arm. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have insulted Christina that first time, or compared you to Mama.” 

Ruby just rubs at her forehead, trying to clear the thumping heartbeat from her ears. “But you’re right, Leti. I don’t know if she wants to do this.”

It scares her to her core. No matter how much part of her clamors at all Christina had said to her, done for her, sacrificed for her, the tiny voice in her ear, the one that sounds like the one her mother used to plead with every man that Ruby pretended not to hear leave in the early morning, whispers, _would this be the last straw?_

“Look, fuck that bitch for a second,” and this does get Ruby to lift her head, glaring half-heartedly at her sister. “Do _you_ want to be a mother?”

With the initial shock and defensiveness dissipating from her mind, Ruby pauses to consider the statement. 

A mother. It’s not as if thought hadn’t passed her mind, in between wondering what next typing class she should take. When Leti first told her she was pregnant was when she thought about it the most — angry at her sister being so careless with this man that had barely anything to his name; a quiet shame that her sister would be the first to fit into all the expectations beating against her for her age, her gender, her body, that she’d been stubbornly fighting against for a taste of the good life; tired at the idea of needing to follow Leti around to clean up after her messes, again. But she plenty else to worry about after that. 

She never felt lonely, per se, even before she knew she was. Would be. If there weren’t steady pale arms encircling her waist at night. And she doesn’t know if a baby would be the right thing with that fear that flickers against her soul every time she thinks of coming home from school to an empty house, and a whining Leti. Of never knowing when her mother would return. 

“I don’t know,” she says, finally. Honestly. “Leti… do we even know how?”

Leti lets her head bow, and Ruby knows her thoughts had come to the same conclusion. 

“We can’t let her actions lead our life like that. We’re not her, Ruby. _You’re_ not her,” Leti shakes her head. “You think mama would have taken ten typing seminars and numbers courses?”

“Eleven,” Ruby adds, and Leti breaks out into a smile.

“See?” 

“You’re not her either,” Ruby turns her hands to intertwine with Leti’s. “As much as you ran around this country, you wanted to use it to change the world. Make something better for others, not just you.” 

“It was still running,” Let shakes her head. “We both were running, in our own ways. But it’s time to stop looking behind our shoulders, don’t you think?” she looks up at Ruby, and the exhausted sits heavy on her face. “Aren’t you tired?”

“I am,” Ruby shakes her head, wondering if there were even a handful of things she could _not_ feel tired from. “I’m so fucking tired.”

“Then maybe its time to put down some roots, Ruby, and rest.” 

“But I don’t want to do this alone,” Ruby whispers, and the truth almost scares her in its rawness.

“You’ll never be _alone_ alone,” Leti grabs Ruby’s hands now, squeezing them between her own. Ruby smiles, looking up into warm brown eyes. “You got us no matter what. We might not have old slaveowner money, but we got some decent trinkets in this house, and Mr. Fix-It knows a little bit of magic too.” Then she looks up at Hippolyta, who’s politely re-arranging Leti’s desk. “And um… whatever’s in Auntie’s arms.”

Ruby laughs at Hippolyta’s sly smile, and wipes some tears pooling at the sides of her eyes. 

“I know, I know. And it means a lot,” Ruby looks between the two of them, but her smile turns back into trepidation, and she continues in a smaller voice, “But… I know I want her there.” 

That truth scares her less. She’s tasted blood, power, and the inside of Christina’s lips enough times to know she doesn’t want to lose them. She knows she doesn’t want to choose. 

But there’s no use in driving herself up the wall. 

Ruby chews on her lip, and then turns at Leti, who already looks resigned at the conclusion across her sister’s face. “I think I need to go talk to her.”

Leti sighs. “Want us to come?”

“No,” and with the small victories she’s made in getting Christina to stay open for longer and longer the past few weeks, she can only imagine how quickly the progress would shut down upon spotting Leti in the house. “No, I need to do this on my own.” 

“Well,” Leti’s tongue clicks. “She left the invulnerability spell on me, so I can drive there in 5 minutes, max. With my bat,” she nods to the proudly chipped wood sitting against the corner. 

Ruby rolls her eyes, and nudges Leti with her shoulder. “Thanks, Leti.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Leti gets up to stretch, then nods at Hippolyta. “Now get going so one of us at least should go down and eat Tic’s cooking before he works himself up into a nervous breakdown thinking he poisoned everyone.” 

“I know he can get thick around you, but he should be able to connect these dots, right?” Ruby gestures to her stomach. 

Leti shrugs, pausing in the doorway. “Who knows. Not dying hasn’t helped his ego at all.” Ruby snorts, and Leti grins good-naturedly at her, and then softens. “Call me tomorrow?” 

“I will,” Ruby smiles. “And thanks, Auntie,” she nods at Hippolyta. 

“Good luck, Ruby,” she waves, following Leti downstairs.

Ruby sits on the bed, letting herself just feel the quiet for a few moments, before swallowing thickly and walking into her fear.

— — —

When she gets back, the house is almost completely dark except for the single light at the porch — Christina always leaves it on for her on these family dinner night. Ruby switches it off when she comes inside, noting the half-open basement door. She peeks a head down the stairs, but there’s no light coming from the drawing table or anywhere else. Hanging her jacket in the hall closet, Ruby doesn’t see any movement in the kitchen either. 

She eventually finds Christina in their bedroom, sitting on the smooth sheets in her big spotted robe and toweling at wet hair. The blonde strands look otherworldly pale, bathed in moonlight that streams in from the large window. 

Christina smiles softly when she spots her. “How was dinner?” and its the first time she’s has asked about something related to the family since the failed ascension. Ruby tries to smooth the surprise out of her face as she steps into the closet to switch her jacket and skirt for a silk nightgown.

“Good,” Ruby says coming back out, but a loud growl from her stomach give her away. Christina just raises an eyebrow. “Okay, fine, Tic’s cooking made me a little sick.”

“Did he add shellfish?” 

Ruby’s lips twist up into a fond smile. “Sort of,” though Christina doesn’t press. She merely tosses her towel across her shoulder, standing to walk briskly out of the room. 

She returns just as Ruby’s settled comfortable against the headboard, carrying a tray of fruit, nuts, and cheeses, along with a couple slices of bread. Toasted. 

It touches something in Ruby’s chest in a place barely knew existed, that she almost starts crying then and there. 

Christina must notice, because her eyes look up from balancing the tray and widen in fear. 

“Is everything alright?” she frowns, placing the tray on Ruby’s nightstand to sit at her side, clasping her hands in long, pale fingers. 

“Yes,” Ruby pulls her hands up with her as she rubs the sides of her eyes, “No.”

“Is it possible to tell me in a few more words?” Christina says evenly, though there’s a faint smirk at her mouth. “Maybe with less juxtaposition?”

Ruby bites her lips, staring down at their intertwined hands, then back up into Christina’s deep, blue eyes. They’re tired, but soft. Open. Just like she’s wanted them to be. 

She drinks the sight in. Wants to remember it, in case its the last time she’ll see them like this.

“I’m pregnant.”

Christina stills. At the feeling of tensing fingers between her own, Ruby bites her tongue so sharply she tastes blood. 

Driving back alone in the Bentley, Ruby quickly had spiraled into her worst fears. That Christina would reject her outright; scoff, accuse Ruby if it was really hers or not; even worse, a nonchalant tone as she asks when Ruby will get rid of it. In her darkest fears, Ruby worries she’ll discover the mask Christina so easily slips on her face for everyone else would actually be the truth underneath such false pleasures she’s throw Ruby’s way.

But Christina’s face has none of those thoughts spread across it. Its impossibly paler, looking barely like a specter in the night, made real only for the cold hands Ruby can still feel between her own. Christina is practically statuesque; Ruby thinks if she walked away for a hundred years, she would return and find Christina still sitting there on the bed in the same position, unchanged except for a layer of dust and ivy growing up her legs. 

Two wide blue eyes lay frozen on Ruby’s face, staring back at her with the reaction that never once crossed her mind:

_Fear._

It’s so absolutely raw, that Ruby has to suppress a shiver across her whole body. 

“Christina?” Ruby whispers, pulling a hand out of the grip to run two fingers against a sharp jaw. Pink lips part, but even in the silence of the night, Ruby can’t even hear a brush of air slip between them. 

“Please say something,” Ruby pleads. “Anything.”

She can feel the strain passing through Christina’s neck as her body twitches to follow its prime directive, _listen to Ruby_. But Christina only opens her mouth halfway before it clacks shut, the rest of her muscles flexing like an animal backed into a corner, tensing before its final act. The sight is like a knife in Ruby’s chest, every flinch a twist of the handle. 

Because for the first time she’s known her, Ruby thinks Christina is about to _run_.

The thought shatters what’s left of Ruby’s already weakening heart. Of all the ways she had thought of Christina — ambitious, tender, ruthless, naive, bloodthirsty, loving, _loving —_ she had never once seen her as a coward. Yet every muscle she feels underneath her is begging for escape. 

Ruby looks away, the reality of the situation crashing down upon her, dragging her into a dark, cold riptide. Hot tears burn at the corners of her eyes, and she takes a last shaky breath before the water pulls her under, desperate to at least drown with all truths laid bare. 

“I can’t do this without you.”

And letting the words hang in the air, Ruby lets her hands fall from Christina’s as she starts rise from the bed.

She freezes when they snap back and _pull_.

“I would never leave you,” Christina’s voice cracks from the sheer effort she puts into the words, the open, frenzied emotion has Ruby gasping. “Never.”

Ruby can’t stop the shiver now, and her whole body trembles as Christina kneels to the floor at Ruby’s feet, staring up at her like at an alter. 

“To the ends of this earth and beyond, I wouldn’t leave your side, Ruby. Let the horrors of the universe try — I’ve stopped them before.”

It’s Ruby’s turn to sit, speechless and frozen under Christina’s eyes, burning alight from the spark.

Christina lets her head fall into in Ruby’s lab, her shoulders shaking as she wraps thin arms tight around her waist. “Never,” she whispers again into the silk. 

Ruby dips her hands to run soothingly against Christina’s back, slipping underneath the collar of her loose robe and against sharp shoulderblades, rubbing them gently for a few minutes until they calm. Slowly, Ruby drags her hands up Christina’s neck and jaw, gently pulling her face to look up at her. 

“I hear you,” Ruby whispers, “But could you tell me what you’re thinking now?”

The length of Christina’s neck like an arc of a bow pulled tight. Her voice is rough as it travels through the taut string. “Who am I to raise a child?” she whispers. “I know nothing of children, and I know nothing of families. How could I let myself be part of someone’s life like this when I am posed only to ruin every part of it?” 

Ruby lets out a shuddering sigh. She was no stranger to Christina’s apathy towards family, her rolling hatred for the gaping chasm inside of her. The one she knew Ruby felt too, in the way Christina had held her close after the first time she had cried about her mother, and the second, third, tenth.

“No one is ever fully ready to be a good parent, Christina,” Ruby murmurs. “But it never means they’re only there to ruin it. You have a choice on who you want to be.”

“I don’t know how to do it,” Christina whispers.

“How to do what?” 

“Any of it,” and her voice is small again. “I don’t know how to make the right choices to love.”

Ruby smiles. “You learned very quickly with me.” 

“You never hesitated to tell me,” Christina smiles, leaning into Ruby’s hand. “But how could a child?”

Shaking her head, Ruby bends down to kiss Christina’s forehead. “If anything, you’ve proven yourself adept at learning to listen,” she says, pulling back to stare down at wide blue eyes. “You’ll just have to learn to hear a different type of language.”

But Christina still looks nervous, so Ruby brings a hand up to smooth some hair back, tucking it behind her ear. “You always have a choice, Christina. You made your choices.” 

“I made those choices because as much as I tried to run from my father and the order, I ended up doing everything because of him. What I thought were my instincts were still his whispers in my head. I don’t trust them anymore,” she lowers her head again into Ruby’s lap. “They almost made me lose myself to serve yet another white man with the same idea of magic as every other person I had run from. They made me almost lose _you_.” 

“You didn’t though,” Ruby sighs, letting her hands run back along Christina’s shoulders. “You stopped.”

“ _Because_ of you.”

“No,” Ruby shakes her head, and Christina looks up with a frown. “No, Christina. I didn’t tell you to cast that barrier, to close the portal, to burn that idiot,” and Christina smiles at Ruby’s rage, drinking it in. “ _You_ made that choice.” 

“I still failed to send him back,” Christina shakes her head. “I only weakened him temporarily.”

“That’s still enough, because you decided to do that on your own. And because now we can deal with that together. As a family,” Ruby shakes her head. “And if my sister and the combined idiocy of her man and his father with their handful of stuttered magic can almost successfully trip you up? Then imagine what we can do on the same page.”

Christina does laugh then, an open moment of elation that makes Ruby’s heart swell.

“How you learn to be a mother will be just another choice,” Ruby says. “So forgive me for saying that I trust you can learn how to interact with a child.”

“Not just one mother,” Christina’s smile fades. “How could I welcome a child into the world like this though? Two mothers? A life to be scorned?”

“When have you cared much for the expectations of the world?” 

“I didn’t have to, because I had the money, the power, and skin color to get away with it. You told me that,” Christina looks back up at Ruby. “These expectations matter when they impact you,” and she lays a hand on Ruby’s stomach. “And now us.”

“Well lucky for this baby, its two mothers have a few tricks up their sleeves,” Ruby. “And now we have six months to figure something out.”

“Six months?” Christina’s eyes widen raise as she makes the mental calculations. “Since the beginning…?”

“You sure know how to lock a girl down,” Ruby laughs. “A baby, mansion, and shapeshifting potion, all within the first what, week?”

Christina smiles, then bites her lip. “Have you told your sister?”

“Yes,” Ruby swallows. “They all know.”

“The food,” Christina shakes her head. “Nausea?”

Ruby rubs her forehead. “Yes, I almost took out Leti’s foyer.”

“And they’re not coming here with pitchforks and torches?” Christina asks in a joking tone, but Ruby can see the worry in her eyes. “I would assume your sister would want my head on a stake immediately.”

“Please,” Ruby scoffs. “She owes me for not immediately kicking Tic’s ass all the way back to Florida. At least we don’t have to worry about how to pay for an extra plate on the table.”

“Your sister doesn’t have to worry either. She’s family. And you know all this is yours too, Ruby,” Christina says softly, as she gestures to the house around them. “And, technically, Tic is family too,” she frowns. “This will be a very odd relationship set up for the children.” 

Ruby snorts. “We can figure that out too,” and she yawns, glancing at the clock. The exhaustion of the reveal is hitting her now, and her bones ache for a taste of that rest Leti was talking about. “But maybe in the morning?”

“Are you sure you don’t want anything to eat?” Christina asks, eyeing the foods on the nightstand.

“No, in case it all comes back up again, I think I’ll just wait until tomorrow.” Ruby smiles, bringing a hand back up to Christina’s cheek. “Thank you though.”

Christina just turns to kiss her hand before standing smoothly. She grabs the tray, padding out of the room. Ruby’s settled in the blankets when she returns, and Christina gently slides in under the covers next to her to face her. 

“Can I hold you?” she hears Christina whisper, and Ruby opens a bleary eye to nod. Slowly, Christina shuffles to press against her, one hand wrapping around Ruby’s waist. Another falls between them, resting on her lower stomach.

“I don’t know if you can feel anything yet,” Ruby says, but she looks down anyway, and the sight of how tenderly she splays her fingers across her stomach makes her heart skip a beat. 

“I know,” Christina smiles, and then looks back up at her. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Ruby breathes, and lets herself sink into the truth, the feeling of _family_ and _home_. 

**Author's Note:**

> yeah sex is hot but y’all know what really gets me going? when someone gives you a glass of water after you completely fall apart against them. 
> 
> also, cilantro may be a controversial ingredient in beans and rice, but ruby definitely has yummy cilantro gene privilege. because she’s perfect. 
> 
> see you all on the other side, my loves!


End file.
